A teenage girl was ‘loaned out’ by her ‘lover boy’ boyfriend to be sexually abused by his friends in Belgium who filmed the attack on their phones and shared images on social media, according to reports, in a case that has shocked the country.
The 14-year-old girl was abused by ten minors on up to three occasions between April 2 and April 6 over the Easter holidays, prosecutors say.
The main suspect – the girl’s 14-year-old boyfriend – is alleged to have taken the girl with him to a wooded area called Kabouterbos in Kortrijk, West Flanders. The spot is popular with mountain bikers and sits close to a highway.
Once there, the boyfriend is said to have attacked his young partner before allegedly allowing several other boys to sexually assault her as well. Reports said the group filmed the attack on their smartphones and posted clips to social media.
Prosecutors arrested ten suspects aged between 11 and 16 – all reported by local outlets to be boys of ‘immigrant origin’ – and hauled them in for interrogation.
Since then, more details have emerged about the suspects.
Citing ‘well placed sources’, Belgian outlet Nieuwsblad described the boyfriend as a ‘loverboy boy’ type who deliberately allowed his friends to abuse his young partner.
The 14-year-old girl was abused by ten minors on up to three occasions between April 2 and April 6 over the Easter holidays in a wooded area in Kortrijk (pictured), prosecutors say
‘Lover boy’ in this case is a term used to describe human traffickers who typically operate by trying to make their young victims fall in love with them.
Nieuwsblad said prosecutors turned up ‘reprehensible behaviour’ on the part of the suspects and ‘revenge-mongering facts’, citing the sources close to the investigation who said the alleged perpetrators showed ‘a complete lack of sense of norms’.
The girl is thought to have spent at least two days in the forest where she was raped, tormented and abused by the gang of minors. She also returned a third time, reports say, but was not raped on that occasion.
The group took turns abusing the victim, and all participated ‘to a greater or lesser extent,’ Nieuwsblad said in its report.
The girl is understood to have been raped by several of the boys while others filmed the attacks on their smart phones, before sharing the clips with others.
Images were also shared on social media, reportedly over Snapchat – an instant messaging app that allows users to easily share pictures and videos.
The youngest of the boys, an 11-year-old, is said to have been used as lookout.
None of the group urged their friends to stop the abuse, sources said.
The investigation has been conducted in the utmost secrecy by the West Flanders prosecutor’s office to avoid any chance of family members of the victim or members of the public learning the identities of those involved.
Although the alleged attack took place in early April, the girl didn’t come forward for several days out of fear of telling her parents and the police.
It wasn’t until April 25 that the police were able to arrest the suspects.
In total, ten boys were detained. Six of the suspects were placed in a closed institution, while the other four were placed under house arrest.
They have since been questioned – all simultaneously and separately, so that investigators can compare all statements.
Citing its sources, Nieuwsblad said many of the statements given by the boys were contradictory, a number of the suspects blaming each other.
Some of the six minors placed in the institution appeared in juvenile court on Wednesday afternoon. It was reported that two were released on conditions.
Nieuwsblad reported that four more minors are now in custody – including the 14-year-old boyfriend who, it is understood, has been made the main suspect.
Prosecutors are now working to establish what extent each suspect was involved in the assault on the 14-year-old girl, or if any were bystanders.
Tom Janssens of the Public Prosecutor’s Office said that on account of the age of all those involved, little is being said publicly on their identity.
He did confirm that ten suspects had been identified and arrested, and that all were minors. ‘Because the perpetrators are so young, we are not releasing much information about their identity,’ Janssens told The Brussels Times.
The main suspect – the girl’s 14-year-old boyfriend – is alleged to have taken the girl with him to the wooded area called Kabouterbos in Kortrijk, West Flanders where she was assaulted by up to 10 boys who are reported to have shared footage of the attack on social media
According to the boyfriend’s lawyer, her client has disputed the events as they have been reported. ‘My client also wants the truth to come to light and for the matter to be thoroughly investigated,’ lawyer Nur Demirtas told Nieuwsblad.
‘He understands that he is now locked up, but this is also traumatising for him. This is also very difficult for his parents, wealthy people who have tried to give their son a good upbringing. They don’t understand how this could happen,’ Demirtas said.
‘It also strikes me that suspects of such crimes are becoming younger and younger. That is very disturbing.’
Lawyer Kelly De Caluwé, who is defending a 16-year-old suspect of Somali origin, said the minors had ‘all been interrogated simultaneously and the investigators will now test the statements to find out the truth’.
‘These are horrible facts,’ she said. ‘The question is how it is possible that these children have lost all sense of norms. What should we do with this?
‘How are we going to solve this? It is a question that should be asked not only to the juvenile judge but also to society as a whole. I have not yet experienced such facts in my fifteen-year career.’
Caluwé said her client said things he did not mean during the questioning and has asked for a re-examination.
‘I asked for a re-examination because due to the language barrier he said things that did not match what he meant,’ she said, according to Nieuwsblad.
‘To me he is not a rapist. Although he realises that something very wrong has happened. That realisation comes gradually.’
Kortrijk mayor Vincent Van Quickenborne said he was shocked when he first learned about the case that he has known about behind closed doors ‘for some time’.
‘The public prosecutor’s office does not allow me to say anything about the facts themselves, but I had been aware of the investigation for some time,’ he said.
‘These are cra*py acts for which there are no words. I say that not only as a politician, but also as a father of 3 young children.’
The criminal age of responsibility in Belgium is 18, meaning the suspected sexual abusers were sent before a juvenile judge and are likely to have been placed into a personal rehabilitation programme in youth facilities.
But it is possible the 16-year-old in question could be dealt with under adult criminal law, given the exceptional nature of the case.
The victim, meanwhile, is receiving specialist guidance following her ordeal.
The case in Belgium comes three years after another, similarly horrific incident shocked the country when a 14-year-old girl was raped by a group of young men in a cemetery in Ghent, in East Flanders.
Aged between 14 and 19, the group filmed the attack and circulated the footage on social media. The victim later took her own life.
The case sparked debate in Belgium about the country’s juvenile delinquency laws, as well as around increasing the minimum penalty for sexual offences.
Belgium eventually tightened the juvenile delinquency laws.
This made it possible to lock up children as young as 12 for longer periods if they are found guilty of rape and gang rape, and since 2022, offenders aged 16 and over who committed such crimes can be tried as adults.
Commenting on the recent case, East Flanders’s Justice Minister Zuhal Demir – who advocated for the tightening of such laws – said parents of children who commit such crimes ‘must be held accountable’.
‘You simply cannot deal with this kind of violence with lower [sentences],’ she said, according to The Brussels Times.
‘Such [perpetrators] must be taken off the streets and their parents must be held accountable. Juvenile judges should make more and full use of the recent tightening of juvenile delinquency law.’
On why it likely took the 14-year-old girl time to come forward after the early April incident, professor of forensic psychology Frédéric Declercq told De Morgen: There is always under-reporting of sexual crimes, whether it concerns a gang rape or an individual case. It is a well-known fact that victims usually feel more guilty than the perpetrators.’
‘In addition, there is a lot of shame in reporting crime. What also plays a role, for both female and male victims, is stigmatisation. You are no longer who you always were. If you come out, you are a rape victim.’
